Highland Park shooting marked with remembrance, renewed call for gun reform

Highland Park, Ill., celebrated July Fourth in somber remembrance, one year after seven people were killed in a mass shooting during the previous running of the city’s parade.

The community gathered in a ceremony to remember the seven people killed and dozens injured, and to “reclaim” the Independence Day parade route from the tragedy.

“This morning, we remember those who were murdered and those whose lives were forever altered. Our hearts will always ache for the families and friends who were left behind to grapple with the pain of their loss,” Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering said at the ceremony.

“There is nothing we can say that will fill the holes torn in their hearts or to heal those who were irreparably harmed,” she added.

Both of Illinois’s senators and Gov. JB Pritzker (D) were in attendance.

Security was tight at the event, including security checking the bags of every attendee and multiple police snipers visible on nearby rooftops, according to reporting from The Chicago Sun-Times.

Instead of running a normal parade, organizers instead held a march of remembrance, where the thousands in attendance walked down the normal parade route.

Community members, advocates and politicians used the anniversary to double down on efforts to pass gun control. The shooter used an AR-15 style rifle, the same style Democrats have advocated for banning.

“It’s within our power to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require safe storage, end gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability, and enact universal background checks,” President Biden said in a statement.

Biden was joined in the calls by local politicians, including Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), whose district neighbors Highland Park.

“We must end the obscene proliferation of military style weapons, as well as the easy access to all deadly firearms,” she said on Twitter.

Rotering also penned a letter to Congress on Tuesday advocating for reimplementing the Assault Weapons Ban, which expired in 2004.

“We need to address the very real epidemic that this is to the public’s health and safety,” Rotering said. 

“There’s no reason that we have to live this way. We know from our peer nations that no other country has this kind of experience, and we need to stop normalizing gun violence. This is not the way a civilized society lives. We deserve better.”